Public Citizen Wants California AG Supervision of OpenAI Conversion

Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization, is asking the California Attorney General to supervise OpenAI’s impending conversion to a public benefit corporation.  Public Citizen asserts that OpenAI is worth at least $30 billion, without regard to any premium associated with its control over the joint venture.  The organization implies that the estimate is probably a conservative one.  That’s because although taxpayers are OpenAI’s ultimate owners, they don’t have access to the details of OpenAI’s joint venture with Microsoft and other private investors. I wonder if the California AG or the IRS know the details.  Either would have authority to require disclosure.  

Thirty billion dollars is a lot of money but only 10% of Microsoft’s value, currently somewhere around $3 trillion.  Microsoft’ net assets on hand are somewhere around $270 billion.  And, of course, there are other salivating deep pocket investors, like a UAE sovereign wealth fund with more dollars than grains of oil-soaked sand probably.  So a conversion is all very do-able if the requirement to pay FMV is the only hurdle.  Public Citizen wants to make sure the price is right but it also asserts that taxpayers should retain a perpetual license in OpenAI’s taxpayer funded technology.  

Here is the first page of Public Citizen’s letter to the AG:

darryll k. jones